Lately, there has been a massive increase in businesses hiring 1099 contractors instead of keeping a large staff of full-time employees. While hiring independent contractors has its advantages, there is an inherent problem with hiring contractors that many businesses either ignore or choose not to acknowledge, which is the need for innovation. Let’s consider an emerging model in the modern workplace, Innovation Team as a Service. Innovation Team as a service (iTaaS) is allowing the budding entrepreneur and established corporate executive to take on new product development projects with swiftness and a sharp eye on innovation. 

Speed to Market 

The iTaaS model allows you to keep your internal teams focused on their essential duties while leveraging an outside team to speed up the development of new capabilities or implement operational processes that improve your in-house team’s productivity.  

Healthier and More Productive employees

Most of the time, the demand of pursuing a new product or idea, in addition to maintaining your core business, results in your W2 employees putting in costly overtime hours while still struggling to deliver on their day to day tasks. This can result in staff burnout which in turn affects morale and engagement. Keeping a core group of permanent employees who can maintain a reasonable work-life balance and then partnering with an iTaaS team to develop new products will keep your staff healthier, happier and as productive as possible.

Less brain – drain

For the average business leader, taking on a new product development project can be a daunting task. With the assistance of an iTaaS team, you can be the one to lay your company’s foundation while the data you need is collected and analyzed by your hired ninjas. Your time to market shrinks to its shortest possible duration, and your reputation for producing results grows! 

Flexibility

iTaaS is a good way to hire an experienced, talented team of the right size that can help you bring your innovations to market without the long term commitments of hiring, training, and retaining full-time employees. iTaaS allows you to keep your core permanent team lean and focused while taking on any new project or innovation that is necessary, and a bonus every business owner should consider, without the HR cycle! 

Diverse talents 

iTaaS will allow you to draw on skill sets you don’t currently have in-house without the expense of new permanent hires. To fully realize a new idea, a variety of skills and perspectives are required which you may not have within your ranks. Even if all the right people are already on your payroll, they should be focused on their respective departments or taking care of other crucial parts of the business. On top of this, if your idea is new or experimental, then it is even more likely that your organization does not have all the right skilled people available. Finding, hiring, and training new individuals for a new project can be timely and costly and inefficient for your business.

Augmented innovation 

The last and perhaps the most compelling value of iTaaS is their ability to produce true innovation. iTaaS teams are not biased by your organization’s culture or internal constraints. This gives them a fresh and unique perspective on your problem which leads to innovative solutions. iTaaS teams have a clear mission focused on innovation, think holistically, and employ processes designed to produce breakthrough results. It would be difficult to recreate the culture and capabilities of iTaaS in the day to day operation of an existing business.

iTaaS is emerging as an effective way to outsource product development with breakthrough results. Startup entrepreneurs and corporate executives should consider the option of hiring an iTaaS team. Whether you are motivated by flexibility, speed to market, a need for innovation skills, or anything in between iTaaS is a powerful strategy you can put to work for your business. Start a pilot project with a trustworthy iTaaS organization near you, then incrementally build to large projects over time. You’ll be amazed by the results you will produce.